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Rivers are they friend or foe? To one the Mekong is both. He must dance with death to bring life to his family. He must walk a knife edge to feed his life. One wrong step and he has lost his race with the river. The river is both Friend and Foe to him. The river is both friend and enemy.

Rivers are they friend or foe? The flood is foe unless the people do not plan ahead. In the dry they collect spheres of life and raise their bounty. The people of the Amazon catch and rear Turtles they raise them only to release them. They give them back, back to the river and then hunt them. Sisters go fishing, fishing with spear and fine line to hook their food. Yes when the floods come their village becomes an island. So if they do not collect in dry they would probably die.

Rivers are they friend or foe? In deserts of Africa they are both for when the water disappears beneath the land it seems that Death has claimed the river for his own. But even here life too rains for even in a dry river bed there is water, if you know how to look. But for camel herds it seems that the drought has a river cook. They cannot the river find so they let another detect the rivers wind. The elephant’s nose is better at water divining, so in the night the herds let him dig it up. But in the morning they trace the grate Lord’s root by his dung. For where the elephant has been there too must the water be. Yes there too must the water, water be. When the herds return to their village they thank their god’s for the water they have given them. They too thank the elephant by leaving them offerings of water. So too here rivers are both friend and foe.

© Christian Boustead 25/02/2011.